The present invention relates to a front vehicle-body structure of a vehicle, and in particular, relates to a surrounding structure of an apron reinforcement to which a suspension housing is joined.
Since an upper portion of a suspension is fixedly fastened to the suspension housing, the suspension housing is easily deformed in a vertical direction by an input of vertical vibrations from the suspension. Thus, it is known that the NVH (Noise Vibration Harshness) performance is deteriorated by this deformation. Accordingly, various countermeasures for improving the rigidity of the suspension housing have been conventionally conducted in order to improve the NVH performance.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-131028, for example, discloses a front vehicle-body structure which comprises an apron reinforcement extending forward from an upper portion of a hinge pillar, and a suspension housing provided on an inward side, in a vehicle width direction, of the apron reinforcement, wherein an inward face of the apron reinforcement and an outward face of the suspension housing are directly joined to each other, and an upper face of the apron reinforcement and the outward face of the suspension housing are joined by a joint enlargement member.
According to the above-described structure disclosed in the patent document, since an area of the joint portion between the suspension housing and the apron reinforcement is increased by a joint area of the joint enlargement member which is to be added a joint area of direct joining, a stiffer joint structure can be materialized. Thereby, the rigidity of the suspension housing is improved because the support rigidity by the apron reinforcement increases.
However, the above-described structure of the patent document is configured such that the rigidity of the suspension housing is improved by increasing the joint rigidity between the suspension housing and the apron reinforcement, thereby suppressing a relative deformation (inward falling-down, for example) of the suspension housing relative to the apron reinforcement, in particular. Therefore, in a case where the above-described vertical vibrations from the suspension is large, the suspension housing is deformed in the vertical direction and/or in the vehicle width direction together with the apron reinforcement, so that the NVH performance may be easily deteriorated.
That is, there is room for further improvement in suppressing the deformation of the apron reinforcement, in particular, the deformation, in the vertical direction, of the apron reinforcement in order to further improve the NVH performance of the vehicle.